Photographing Conflict: Libya’s Uprising and the Refugee Crisis

Determined to document the Libyan conflict in 2011, photojournalist Lynsey Addario snuck into Libya through Egypt—without a visa—with some fellow journalists. Well aware of the risk of being caught by Qaddafi's forces, Addario continued to move forward with the rebels on the frontline in Ajdabiya so she could get the most recent reporting on the uprising. By the time the journalists fled they were forced directly into one of Qaddafi's checkpoints and surrounded by gunfire. After her release, Addario decided to focus her lens on the refugee crisis.

The National Geographic Live series brings thought-provoking presentations by today’s leading explorers, scientists, photographers, and performing artists right to you. Each presentation is filmed in front of a live audience at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. New clips air every Monday.

I had a premonition that something was going to happen and I gave Bryan Denton a hard-drive of all of my work and said, If we get captured, send this to my agency and in fact, two days later we went missing.

In 2011, I wanted to cover the uprising in Libya. So, like so many journalists we snuck in through Egypt. We didn't have visas, we knew that one of the great risks for us journalists was getting caught by Qaddafi's forces. When we got there there was this incredible euphoria very similar to after Saddam fell. The rebels were setting up a parallel government in Benghazi and there was also chaos there was looting around the country. There was a call to arms these are engineers, doctors, teachers they had absolutely no military training. They look like a Monty Python skit they kinda just threw on green clothes and went to this call to arms. This is them checking out their weapons. And ironically, most of the journalists had much more combat experience than they did. Sometimes I would see journalists on the frontline and there would be a rebel with a RPG turned backwards and those journalists would say, “No!”

These are all of the workers who were working in Libya as foreigners, immigrants, and they were all trying to flee Bangladeshis, Indians, they had been working there a long time. They knew the war was coming, and they all were trying to get on boats at the harbor to get out.

We moved forward with the rebels on the frontline. This is a rebel looking out to see if Qaddafi's troops were coming closer. And I just want to show you what the frontline looked like in Libya. This is literally a frontline. This is one road that went from east to west through the country. The rebels were coming from the east Qaddafi's troops were coming from the west. We would hear the hum of an aircraft and look up and then, suddenly a bomb would just fall. On this particular day there was a helicopter gunship that came in right above our heads and they were spraying the ground all around us with 50-caliber bullets. There is nowhere to hide in this desert, it is completely flat I just crouched down and started photographing because there was nothing else I could do.

And this is a very typical day of heavy combat. The only place to hide were in these cement silos and there were bombs everywhere. Qaddafi's military completely had more weapons than the rebels, they had airstrikes, helicopter gunships tank-fire, sniper-fire. And as the rebels made progress and they would take towns they would often deface pictures of Qaddafi. These are some wounded rebels.

So we stayed for about two weeks working on the frontline. People opened their homes to the journalists there. For example, in a town called Brega, there were 17 journalists we were all sleeping on the floor of this one home. And every night at five o'clock there'd be a knock at the door then the women who lived next door would send their sons over with trays of food to feed all the journalists staying next door. This is in Ra's Lanuf on the frontline. And this is when an airstrike is coming in you could hear the aircraft and then the bomb falls. And literally it would just fall next to you.

So, on March 15th 2011, I was working with Tyler Hicks, Anthony Shadid and Steve Farrell and we were covering the frontline in Ajdabiya. We knew that the city was going to fall all the signs were there, civilians were fleeing. The mortar-rounds were walking towards our position. That's a sign that they are zooming in on a position. We wanted to stay as long as we possibly could to get the freshest reporting. Our driver started getting calls saying Qaddafi's troops were in the city and that we had to leave, and we ignored him. That's the first mistake, you never ignore your driver. We stayed, we kept photographing and working on the frontline and by the time we decided to flee we drove directly into one of Qaddafi's checkpoints. This is the exact position that we were taken hostage. If you look at Bryan Denton's name, he's a photographer for the New York Times, that's where our car was stopped. You have to make a decision when you approach a hostile checkpoint. Do you stop and announce yourself as journalists and hope that they don't kill you. Or do you try and drive through the checkpoint and hope that they don't open fire?. We are all yelling something different Drive, go, stop. Our driver panicked, he stopped the car and jumped out, he said we're journalists. At that point Qaddafi's troops ripped us out of the car. The rebels that we were with started opening fire on that checkpoint and we were caught in a wall of bullets. There were bullets everywhere. I did not get out of the car at that point. All the men had jumped out and had been pulled out. I was still sitting behind where the driver had been sitting on the left-hand side. I put my head in my lap and started sort of prayed that it would all go away. And it did not. And so, I felt the bullets everywhere and I said, “Okay, I have to get out of the car” because a car is not armored, it does not protect you. I crawled across the backseat, jumped out and one of Qaddafi's troops was immediately on me pulling my cameras. Of course, I'm pulling back instinctively which is not very smart, and so he's pulling back and we're in the middle of the road and I feel bullets everywhere. So, I suddenly thought, “Okay, I have to make a run for it.” So, each one of us tried to get behind this cement building. When we got behind the building we were told to lie face down in the dirt. Each one of us had a gun put to our heads. They were about to execute us, and the commander came over and said, “You can't kill them, they're American.” And we don't know why he said that but Anthony later translated that for us. In that moment they took my shoes off my feet tied me up with my shoe laces my wrists and my ankles together and carried me away. They put me and Steve in one vehicle on the frontline and Tyler and Anthony in another and they kept us there for hours while sniper-fire, bullets and bombs rained around us. We were tied up, we couldn't go anywhere.

At that point as the fighting got closer, they decided they wanted us to live. They switched our position, they moved us to another position. The entire time we were punched in the face. The men were smashed in the back of the head with gun-butts and I was groped. That went on for the first three days. We were eventually put in prison we spent a night in prison which actually was the first time we were allowed to speak to each other openly because before we were blindfolded so we were scared to speak to one another. Then we were flown to Tripoli and we were held there for three days and eventually we were released. This is our release as we were brought to the Turkish embassy. The Turkish government was acting as a proxy for the American government because the Americans had pulled out of Tripoli. So, when we were released we were handed over to the Turks and they brought us to their embassy. And this is our car. Two weeks later Bryan Denton went back to see if they can find our driver. Our driver was never seen again. We don't know if he was killed in that moment when he jumped out of the car, or if he was executed or if he was put in prison. But the New York Times sent a team back to try and look for him and they found our car on the side of the road. And they found my shoe on the side of the road.

After Libya I wanted to cover the war in Syria. But I couldn't go back into Syria because at that point I had been kidnapped two times already so I thought, “not a good idea to go to Syria.” So, I started covering the refugee crisis and these are some of the images. This is Zaatari Camp in Jordan. This is a family arriving in Jordan. At a food distribution. And there's always been a tradition of young brides in Syria but since the war it's been exacerbated because people are living in close proximity in the camps. And families are scared their young girls are going to be raped, so they marry them off very young. On any given weekend about six-seven women who are 12-years old, 13-years old are getting married in the camps. This is a funeral for a fighter in Lebanon. And a young woman who had been hit by shrapnel. The Lebanese government doesn't want formal camps because they are scared that the whole country will be overrun with camps, so people are living in caves factories, and unconventional housing. And this is a man who has been paralyzed in Turkey it's him and his daughter. He was paralyzed in a bomb attack. And this is at the border with Turkey.

As ISIS pushed in... into Northern Iraq I went to cover the push of ISIS. And these are the Yazidis, who are displaced from the homes and from Sinjar Mountain. About a year ago, I heard that the Italian navy was doing rescues at sea and I begged and begged and tried to get on the boats with the Italian navy, and I couldn't get a spot. They said the waiting list was about a year. So, I gave a talk in Milan and at the end of the talk a woman in the audience who had held a position in politics said, “How can I help you?” And I said, “Get me on a boat.” The next day, she-- I got a call and they said, “Do you speak Italian?” I said, “I haven't spoken in 17 years but I can try. “She said, “Be-- Five o'clock go to the port.” I spent 11 days at sea with the Italian navy. And this is one of the first rescues we saw. And there is nothing that compares to pulling up to a raft full of a 110 men who are trying to make their way from the coast of Libya. We've now seen many of these images, but this was last year and it was very early on, I hadn't seen anything like it. And this is on the boat as they are being taken back to shore in Sicily. And this is them being processed, they are numbered. This is all on the shores of Sicily.

So, I spent several months last fall documenting this for the New York Times. And I was shooting this scene and what happens is these large cargo ships or navy ships come in and they offload hundreds of Syrians all sorts of Africans from all over Sub-Saharan Africa. And it's sort of methodical at this point because thousands of people are arriving every month. And so I went and I saw this scene and then I saw this note on the floor. And I thought... I'm not going to touch it because as a journalist I feel like I can't touch anything like I don't want to interfere. So, I took a picture of it and I left it and I went away, that was at about two in the morning because the ships come in late at night. I went back to the hotel. I took a picture also with my phone and I sent an email to my translator in Jordan and I said, Can you translate this letter for me? I saw the little heart on the bottom. And she sent it, the translation the next morning. It says, “Rana, I love you very much. Don't forget me, I love you very much. My wish is for you not to forget me. Be well my love. A loves R. I love you.” So, I went back and I picked up the letter because I thought I can't leave that love letter there.

Photographing Conflict: Libya’s Uprising and the Refugee Crisis

Determined to document the Libyan conflict in 2011, photojournalist Lynsey Addario snuck into Libya through Egypt—without a visa—with some fellow journalists. Well aware of the risk of being caught by Qaddafi's forces, Addario continued to move forward with the rebels on the frontline in Ajdabiya so she could get the most recent reporting on the uprising. By the time the journalists fled they were forced directly into one of Qaddafi's checkpoints and surrounded by gunfire. After her release, Addario decided to focus her lens on the refugee crisis.

The National Geographic Live series brings thought-provoking presentations by today’s leading explorers, scientists, photographers, and performing artists right to you. Each presentation is filmed in front of a live audience at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. New clips air every Monday.